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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mel O&#039;Drama" data-source="post: 319586" data-attributes="member: 23">X-Men: Days Of Future Past (2014) <img src="https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BZGIzNWYzN2YtMjcwYS00YjQ3LWI2NjMtOTNiYTUyYjE2MGNkXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyMTQxNzMzNDI@._V1_.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="width: 418px" /> I wasn't looking forward to this film. The story on which it's based is one that's really special to me. Back in 1983 it was the first "All New, All Different" X-Men story I read. Even at less than a year old it was considered fairly important and within a short time it was cemented as one of the all-time classic X-Men stories. I lost interest in this film even before release when it became clear it would take a very different approach from the original story with (sigh) Wolverine at the centre of things yet again. All of which reminded me of The Dark Phoenix Saga being ruined in The Last Stand. A direct adaption does have potential to invite unfavourable comparisons, but a film wildly doing its own thing using a classic story as inspiration turned me right off the X-films sixteen years ago. As it turns out, going in a different direction for Days Of Future Past works. It feels very much as though the structure of the film is designed to make sense of a franchise which had become discombobulated and messy. Taking full advantage of the concept of changing history, the time travel element was used not only to make the confusing chronology more linear, but also to retcon (in canon) The Last Stand's arrogant recklessness. What's more, knowing that history is going to change, Future Past gets to have its cake and eat it by going to similar extremes, safe in the knowledge that it can be undone. What stuck out to me is that the film and comic versions have very different vantage point. The original 1981 story has the future X-Men (2013 seemed so very far away when I read this as a nipper) sending one of their minds back in time to the present time of 1980. The film's future, however, seems pretty close to the continuity of the original trilogy (bearing in mind the first film established the time as the near future anyway), and sends Wolverine's mind back to the post First Class era of 1973. The original story's novelty came firstly from getting a glimpse into the future and secondly from the Freaky Friday element of seeing a fortysomething woman's mind transplanted into a thirteen year old girl. The reasoning in this film seems well thought out. As much as I didn't like the idea of Wolverine taking Kitty's place as the key player, given the fact that he doesn't age, was still an adult in 1973 and also has the ability to heal from being wrenched from one era to another it all makes sense. Less clear is why Kitty would play the Rachel Summers role in helping his mind transfer, but no matter. I will also add that Hugh Jackman's Wolverine has grown on me in watching his six films up to this point. Yes, he's far too tall and all that, but that's all quickly forgotten because the characterisation is near enough spot on. It's taken me over two decades to decide, but he really is (or was) the most perfect actor to play this role at this moment in time. It's wonderful to see Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen back once again. They get better and better. Halle Berry's look as Storm also gets better with each passing film but - again - it felt like she didn't have very much to say or do. It feels wrong that her most memorable dialogue was delivering Xavier's eulogy in The Last Stand, but I honestly can't remember a thing she said in Days Of Future Past just last night. I'm delighted to say that Michael Fassbender's bizarre First Class accent was sorted out in this film. Gone are the strange rhoticisms, and he sounded so much like Ian McKellen that at times I actually wondered if Ian was dubbing some of the lines. Conversely, Patrick Stewart and James McAvoy being in the same film highlighted for me how different the latter feels as Xavier. It wasn't helped by the plot of the younger Xavier being drugged up and with long, lank hair, but I didn't care for McAvoy at all in this film. Many questions were answered or loose ends tied up: even Wolverine's cameo in First Class got a mention. The biggest omission for me was Xavier's "resurrection". It was hinted towards at the end of The Last Stand and even more so in the mid-credits scene from The Wolverine, but I don't recall the whys and wherefores even getting a mention here. Other than that, I was pretty satisfied with the whole film. And you could say I'm a tough crowd.</blockquote>

Verification: Who played JR Ewing?